Glacier Lily ~ Erythronium grandiflorum
April 18, 2017
May 10, 2013
Spring Beauties
Having not encountered any of these in my wanderings in the valley this spring, I feared that I had missed seeing them this year…
Lanceleaf Springbeauty, Claytonia lanceolata
but here they are, growing next to snowbanks where they like it most,
Big Hole Lookout trail
and as usual, these are blooming along with them.
Glacier Lily, Avalanche Lily, Erythronium grandiflorum
April 28, 2012
April flowers
Our western Montana wildflowers are now well into their spring routine and although I had hoped to show them as they bloom and spotlight each one, alas, I have fallen behind and must try to catch up in the next several posts by showing several at a time. This time of year, each hike uncovers several new blooms. It’s a wonderful time of year!
Arrow-leaved Balsamroot, Balsamorhiza sagittata
Spring Draba, Spring Whitlow Grass, Whitlow Grass, Draba Verna
Spring Draba, Spring Whitlow Grass, Whitlow Grass, Draba Verna
Desert Parsley, Suksdorf’s desert-parsley, Lomatium suksdorfii
Glacier Lily, Avalanche Lily, Dogtoothed Violet, Erythronium grandiflorum
Glacier Lily, Avalanche Lily, Dogtoothed Violet, Erythronium grandiflorum
Glacier Lily, Avalanche Lily, Dogtoothed Violet, Erythronium grandiflorum
Glacier Lily, Avalanche Lily, Dogtoothed Violet, Erythronium grandiflorum
April 17, 2011
Two sets of tracks
The trail I hiked upon today spends nearly all of its time at the dark bottom of a very deep canyon, but as it nears the end of its first mile it climbs up the east mountainside for a short distance to avoid some really nasty terrain and there a few rays of sun can penetrate to warm a small place of a hundred or so feet and provide a comfortable bed for a sprinkling of early wildflowers; today, Yellow Glacier Lilies.
Yellow Glacier Lily, Avalanche Lily, Dogtooth Violet, Erythronium grandiflorum
After hiking just a few hundred yards past the lilies I could see snow banks covering the trail and I knew that not far beyond that point the trail would be buried under deep piles of snow as it again settles into the canyon bottom and I decided to go back down.
As I turned around I began to wonder about the tracks that I could see in the snow and, because they were quite large and up to that point my tracks were the only ones on the trail, I thought they were probably those of a bear, and ventured up to the snow to see if there might be tracks of a new cub as well. But they were not bear tracks.
(For perspective, from the front of the pistol barrel to the rear sight is 6 inches.)
I was careful to leave a clear set my own tracks right beside those big paw prints to let their maker know that he is not the only lobo who roams this part of the forest.
April 12, 2009
Dogtoothed Violet
There is a place I know where the sun can shine bright on a tiny hill in the bottom of a deep canyon and allow the Dogtoothed Violets to bloom earlier there than they do anywhere else around. It seemed appropriate to visit that place today to see this area’s first-blooming lily.
